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Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

wsj.com

121–130 of 207 posts

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We desperately need a national ID card. Social security was never designed for this purpose and it's terrible for it. Drivers license requires having access to a car and some way to learn how to use it.

You can get an ID card that works as legal id but isn't a driver's license, but it still requires going to the DMV and burning at LEAST several hours, which isn't an option available to everybody.

You already have to have an ID to get a job. Who can't do this once in their life?

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#122
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps because counting tens of thousands of near-identical pieces of paper is exactly the sort of repetitive, robotic task we've entrusted machines to perform more accurately than humans since at least the 1940s.

You realize that the article in question is about hacks against vote tabulating machines right?

I do.

But a non-hacked vote tabulating machine will still do the job better than non-hacked humans.

Add a high enough percentage of random hand audits of the machine but counts to ensure they're functioning correctly, and you should get a reasonably high confidence that you have the most accurate count.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#123
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that the article in question is about hacks against vote tabulating machines right?

I do. But a non-hacked vote tabulating machine will still do the job better than non-hacked humans. Add a high enough percentage of random hand audits of the machine but counts to ensure they're functioning correctly, and you should get a reasonably high confidence that you have the most accurate count.

But why? The number of humans to count votes scales linearly with the number of votes cast.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#124

I work for the municipality of Skanderborg, Denmark. We have what we call digital elections, but what’s digitized is the registration process. Basically every adult gets a voting card with their information + a barcode, we scan those barcodes when they turn up to receive their ballot(is that the right word for voting list?), and then they are registered. The actual voting takes place on paper, and while it takes time…

>The actual voting takes place on paper, and while it takes time to prepare the ballots and count the votes, the process of voting doesn’t take very longer than a few minutes for the individual citizen. From they enter the voting place till they are done. How is the counting done in Denmark? Do they still have to collect all the paper ballots and count them in a central place? If so, how do you avoid all the 'hanging…

No they count them at every voting place, and sum the results.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#125
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that the article in question is about hacks against vote tabulating machines right?

I do. But a non-hacked vote tabulating machine will still do the job better than non-hacked humans. Add a high enough percentage of random hand audits of the machine but counts to ensure they're functioning correctly, and you should get a reasonably high confidence that you have the most accurate count.

> Add a high enough percentage of random hand audits of the machine but counts to ensure they're functioning correctly, and you should get a reasonably high confidence that you have the most accurate count.

Defies the purpose of electronic machines completely. Why use machines + lots of auditors, when just more counters (worth less than auditors) could do the same job, with a much higher cost to corrupt?...

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#126
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Colorado. A couple of weeks before the midterms I'm going to get a packet in the mail containing my ballot, instructions for filling it out, a pamphlet where every candidate on the ballot gets a paragraph or two to make their case, and a prepaid return envelope. I fill out my ballot at my leisure, stuff it in the envelope, sign the envelope underneath the flap, and drop it in a mailbox. There's a receipt wi…

And in some states, like Florida, if you vote by mail it is 10x less likely to be counted.[1] Our democracy is broken, and the people capable of fixing it are actively incentivized to keep it broken. [1] https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-p...

The reason the majority of those ballots were rejected is because they didn't sign them.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s a little taxing, but everyone involved enjoy the process This is part of the problem in the United States. Voting is a chore, and you're often going to lose money (unpaid time off) to do it. If elections were national holidays and voting was treated as a privilege instead of a chore, we would be much better off.

In the Netherlands you can vote for a large part of the day, about from 7:00 in the morning to 20:00 or 21:00 hours in the evening. How is the timing in the U.S. then?

It varies by state, but they're typically open for 12 hours starting from 6 or 7AM. Some states are open longer.

https://ballotpedia.org/State_Poll_Opening_and_Closing_Times...

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We desperately need a national ID card. Social security was never designed for this purpose and it's terrible for it. Drivers license requires having access to a car and some way to learn how to use it.

If we're going to have a national ID card, then it needs to be: 1) Free. Period. Otherwise you're going to disenfranchise poor people who can't afford even $50 to get an ID. 2) Universally accessible. If we're going to require it, then we need to make sure everyone has one, from a little old lady living 100 miles from civilization in Montana, to the homeless living in camps near San Jose.

There's plenty of countries where neither of those is true, but the voting system requires a national ID and has better outcomes by any reasonable metric than the US.

So you don't really need those things, but they may be proxy issues for other hard-to-solve issues.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the core irony that the same people: a) Want to make having an ID as a prerequisite for voting and b) Are deeply against any form of national ID card (or anything else that makes it cheap and easy to get an ID) It's almost ( almost ) like they want to prevent poor people from cities (who don't need cars) from voting.

Where is it not cheap and easy to get an ID card?

It's harder than you think, and easy to find out how/why:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a...

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#130
Voting is necessarily a proof of work algorithm, and when you represent the result, you only simulate its effect.

Sure, people don't care if it's simulated when they win, but when they lose, they care a lot.

Feel like I'm a lone voice in the wilderness on this one but I really feel like I need to shout from the rooftops that electronic voting courts violence, and it is culpable hubris to state otherwise.

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